You Can't Push Someone Off a Cliff, "Incrementally"
Barney Frank's statement that trans people have to respect "incremental" changes, "just as the civil rights movement did" makes me wonder what his understanding of civil rights is...
The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color religion, sex, or national origin. It does not 'incrementally' prohibit employment discrimination based on these categories 'unless the person's skin is really really dark, or if you just can't tell what race the person is, or because the religion has more than one diety, or when that country is really really small and far away...'
This is what I imagine an 'incrementalist' ENDA for non-transgender gay and lesbian people would look like. It would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, 'unless the person was not straight-acting, really faggy, swishy, femmy, or oh, god help us, occassionally flamboyant, or just too butch, too macho, or just isn't like those cute L-Word gals, or just not enough like Will in Will and Grace.'
Letting someone kick you in the head with only the right boot, instead of both, doesn't count as incremental reform.
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2 comments:
Nancy Pelosi is behind all of this. She engineered kicking trans people out of ENDA to divide and weaken the queer community politically.
libhom: are you really so sure that ms. pelosi has taken the time to plot such a scheme? i'd bet that she just genuinely believes that the bill won't pass with the trans language included.
to be clear: i'm not excusing her based on her intentions. her intentions are quite irrelevant, and dropping protections for transpeople is wrong. but just because ms. pelosi disagrees doesn't make her evil...
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